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Friday, April 26, 2013

Krauthammer On Syria: "What's At Stake Here Is Whether Anything This President Now Says Is Believable"

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Well, I think what’s really important here is that what’s at stake is not the trajectory of the Syrian war. There’s something else at stake here, and that’s America’s word.

Whatever Obama does, I don’t think he’ll do anything. He’ll try to minimize this. He’ll try to caveat himself out of this. But even if he does act, it’ll be a minor act. It’s not going to have any effect on what happens in Syria.

What’s at stake here is whether anything that this president now says is believable around the world. When you say 'red line' and you make the red line way out there -- it’s not the slaughter of 80,000 of your own people; it’s the use of chemical weapons -- and then you get definitive evidence that it has been used and you don’t do anything, then your word means nothing.

And the one thing America’s had for the last 60 years is the power and the belief in the world that when it says 'x,' it will do 'x.' And I think that’s really what the problem is here. I’m wondering whether this Administration understands how much of its word is at stake. (Special Report, April 25, 2013)

Despite a new U.S. intelligence community assessment that the Syrian regime likely used chemical weapons on its own people, the White House is still waiting for more evidence before deciding whether Bashar al-Assad has crossed President Barack Obama's "red line."

The White House scrambled Thursday to set up a conference call with reporters following Thursday morning's news that the U.S. intelligence community has concluded with varying levels of confidence that there has been small-scale use of sarin, a deadly nerve gas, inside Syria, most likely by the Syrian regime. Secretary of State John Kerry told lawmakers Thursday that the assessment referenced two instances of chemical weapons use in Syria.

A senior White House official said on the conference call that the intelligence community's assessment was not enough to determine that President Obama's red line regarding U.S. intervention in Syria has been crossed.

"We are continuing to do further work to establish a strong, firm, evidentiary basis to determine whether or not the red line has been crossed," the official said. "If we make a determination that the red line has been crossed... what we will be doing is consulting with friends and allies as to the next steps forward."

The official indirectly referenced the flawed intelligence assessments about Saddam Hussein's programs of weapons of mass destruction in the lead up to the Iraq war as justification for caution.

"It is crucial, given our own history with intelligence assessments, including intelligence assessments on weapons of mass destruction... that we are able to present evidence that is airtight," the official said. "It is absolutely the case that the president's red line is the use of chemical weapons or the transfer of chemical weapons to terrorist groups. Our standard of evidence has to build on these intelligence assessments. We want to continue to investigate."

The Obama administration is keeping all options on the table, but the official declined to say what options might be considered if and when it is confirmed that the president's red line has been crossed. The official also declined to identify the locations or dates of the two alleged uses of chemical weapons in Syria, but acknowledged that a March incident in Aleppo had spurred the United States to press for a fuller investigation.

"We will constantly have prepared contingency planning for different scenarios within Syria," the official said. "What the Assad regime needs to know is that we are watching this incredibly closely."

The White House's conclusion that not enough evidence exists to confirm that the Syrian regime has crossed Obama's red line was contradicted Thursday by Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein(D-CA), the chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

"It is clear that ‘red lines' have been crossed and action must be taken to prevent larger scale use," she said in a statement. "Syria has the ability to kill tens of thousands with its chemical weapons. The world must come together to prevent this by unified action which results in the secure containment of Syria's significant stockpile of chemical weapons."

The original announcement about the new intelligence community assessment on Syrian chemical weapons came in statements Thursday from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and in a letter from the White House to several senators delivered Thursday morning during an otherwise classified briefing.

"Our intelligence community does asses with varying degrees of confidence that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically the chemical agent Sarin,"Miguel Rodriguez, the director of the White House office of legislative affairs, wrote in the letter.

First...let me state that we knew that the stockpiling of weapons, including chemical weapons was known through HUMINT (human intelligence) and other sources of intelligence by global national communities. As we know, much of this has been helped along by Russia and Iran. The blame is on the global nations, including the U.S. the have known about this and have not done anything to stop it.

President Obama said in August that

"I want to make it absolutely clear to Assad and those under his command -- the world is watching" "The use of chemical weapons is and would be totally unacceptable. And if you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons, there will be consequences and you will be held accountable," he said.Obama has previously warned that any use of chemical weapons by Syria in its civil war would be crossing a "red line" that would prompt a swift U.S. response. source: here

Here is when there was warning that the bombs were being made ready to launch against the rebels...

From Eric Schmitt and David E. Sanger, New York Times: In the last days of November, Israel’s top military commanders called the Pentagon to discuss troubling intelligence that was showing up on satellite imagery: Syrian troops appeared to be mixing chemicals at two storage sites, probably the deadly nerve gas sarin, and filling dozens of 500-pounds bombs that could be loaded on airplanes.

Within hours President Obama was notified, and the alarm grew over the weekend, as the munitions were loaded onto vehicles near Syrian air bases. In briefings, administration officials were told that if Syria’s increasingly desperate president, Bashar al-Assad, ordered the weapons to be used, they could be airborne in less than two hours — too fast for the United States to act, in all likelihood.

What followed next, officials said, was a remarkable show of international cooperation over a civil war in which the United States, Arab states, Russia and China have almost never agreed on a common course of action.

The combination of a public warning by Mr. Obama and more sharply worded private messages sent to the Syrian leader and his military commanders through Russia and others, including Iraq, Turkey and possibly Jordan, stopped the chemical mixing and the bomb preparation. A week later Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said the worst fears were over — for the time being. . . .

“I think the Russians understood this is the one thing that could get us to intervene in the war,” one senior defense official said last week. “What Assad understood, and whether that understanding changes if he gets cornered in the next few months, that’s anyone’s guess. . . .”

The head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, warned in a confidential assessment last month that the weapons could now be deployed four to six hours after orders were issued, and that Mr. Assad had a special adviser at his side who oversaw control of the weapons, the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported. Some American and other allied officials, however, said in interviews that the sarin-laden bombs could be loaded on planes and airborne in less than two hours. . . .

How the United States and Israel, along with Arab states, would respond remains a mystery. American and allied officials have talked vaguely of having developed “contingency plans” in case they decided to intervene in an effort to neutralize the chemical weapons, a task that the Pentagon estimates would require upward of 75,000 troops. But there have been no evident signs of preparations for any such effort.

The United States military has quietly sent a task force of more than 150 planners and other specialists to Jordan to help the armed forces there, among other things, prepare for the possibility that Syria will lose control of its chemical weapons. . . .

Syria’s chemical weapons are under the control of a secretive Syrian air force organization called Unit 450, a highly vetted outfit that is deemed one of the most loyal to the Assad government given the importance of the weapons in its custody.

American officials said that some of the back-channel messages in recent weeks were directed at the commanders of this unit, warning them — as Mr. Obama warned Mr. Assad on Dec. 3 — that they would be held personally responsible if the government used its chemical weapons.

Asked about these communications and whether they have been successful, an American intelligence official said only, “The topic is extremely sensitive, and public discussion, even on background, will be problematic.” (graphic: Best Thinking)

Is it obvious to anyone else that the video below from approximately a day ago was a staged video to cover our butts because we knew of what was going to happen today with the attack on the Syrian people with the use of chemical weapons?!

Here are are some of the articles about what has happened divided by videos that were about the chemical warfare issue from months ago...

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UK says Syria chemical weapons use would need "serious response"

LONDON | Tue Mar 19, 2013 9:04am EDT

(Reuters) - Britain said on Tuesday it was aware of media reports about a chemical weapons attack in Syria, adding that the use or proliferation of chemical weapons there would demand a serious response from the international community.

"The UK is clear that the use or proliferation of chemical weapons would demand a serious response from the international community and force us to revisit our approach so far," a Foreign Office spokeswoman said.

Despite the Confirmation of Biological Weapons, the International Community Still Can’t Do Anything

Though Syria’s arsenal of chemical weapons has been an open secret for the past 4 decades, the Assad’s regime’s announcement is a direct confirmation that Syria does indeed have a chemical weapons arsenal at their disposal. The announcement targeted the international community, stating that if any foreign intervention in Syria’s civil war would be met with the deployment of chemical weapons. The weapons include mustard and sarin gases, as well as cyanide, and are capable of being deployed by aircraft, surface-to-air missiles and rockets. The announcement has sparked renewed animosity towards the regime, as well as towards the eastern powers that still persist in supporting the Assad regime, such as Russia and China. Though the announcement does spark another international dilemma to be confronted if the community were to begin renewed intervention-talks, it does not present any new looming threat for the opposition groups still fighting throughout the Syrian country.

'Suffocating in the streets': Chemical weapons attack reported in Syria

George Ourfalian / Reuters

Residents and medics transport a wounded Syrian army soldier to hospital Tuesday after heavy fighting in Aleppo province during which both rebels and government forces said a chemical weapon was used.

By Erika Solomon and Dominic Evans, Reuters

Syria's government and rebels accused each other of launching a deadly chemical attack near the northern city of Aleppo on Tuesday in what would, if confirmed, be the first use of such weapons in the two-year-old conflict.

Syria's state news agency SANA said the rebels had launched a missile, while the rebels said the government had fired a long-range missile with "chemical agents."

A Reuters photographer visited two hospitals and saw people with breathing problems, who told him that they saw people dying in the streets and that the air smelled strongly of chlorine.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a human rights monitoring group with a network of sources on the ground, said 26 people were killed in a "rocket attack" but it could neither confirm nor deny reports of chemical weapons.

U.S. President Barack Obama, who has resisted overt military intervention in Syria's civil war, has previously warned Syria's President Bashar Assad that any use of chemical weapons would be a "red line".

Syria's Information Minister Omran al-Zoabi put the death toll at 16 and said 86 people were wounded, most of them critically.

In a televised news conference, he said the country's armed forces would never use internationally banned weapons. "Syria's army leadership has stressed this before and we say it again, if we had chemical weapons we would never use them due to moral, humanitarian and political reasons," Zoabi said.

Damascus, rebels trade charges on "chemical attack"

BEIRUT - Syria's government and rebels accused each other of launching a deadly chemical attack near the northern city of Aleppo on Tuesday in what would, if confirmed, be the first use of such weapons in the two-year-old conflict.

Syria's information minister said rebels had fired a rocket carrying chemical agents that killed 16 people and wounded 86. State television said later the death toll had risen to 25.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict using a network of contacts in Syria, put the number of dead at 26, including 16 soldiers.

A Reuters photographer said victims he had visited in Aleppo hospitals were suffering breathing problems and that people had said they could smell chlorine after the attack.

"I saw mostly women and children," said the photographer, who cannot be named for his own safety.

"They said that people were suffocating in the streets and the air smelt strongly of chlorine."

The photographer quoted victims he met at the University of Aleppo hospital and the al-Rajaa hospital as saying: "People were dying in the streets and in their houses."

President Bashar al-Assad, battling a two-year-old uprising against his rule, is widely believed to have a chemical arsenal.

Syrian officials have neither confirmed nor denied this, but have said that if it existed it would be used to defend against foreign aggression, not against Syrians. There have been no previous reports of chemical weapons in the hands of insurgents.

Information Minister Omran al-Zoabi said rebels fired a rocket with chemical weapons at the town of Khan al-Assal, southwest of Aleppo, in what he called a "dangerous escalation".

He said the rocket had been launched from Aleppo's southeastern district of Nairab, part of which is rebel-held.